Jordan B Peterson

[CandyTiger]

I was given '12 rules for life' by the above author. At first I was insulted that the person who gave me this book, actually thought I needed a self-help book (I don't btw).

I decided to read it anyway. I am not really impressed by the so called 'intellectual' Peterson. He has a bit of a reputation for arguing with feminists.

I am very interested in what other people think of Peterson.

Thanks, in advance.

quite amusing

Enforced monogamy is systemically reducing access to contraception, abortion, sex education, paid family leave, social safety benefits, and independently accessed benefit schemes while socially discouraging higher education and work for all but the elite class

In other words, collectively shifting sexual power dynamics back toward men.

Yes. Peterson clings to refusing to recognise systemic prejudice against women and black people, for example, despite the fact that it is a proven fact. Peterson just rejects that other people have had to endure prejudice because of sex, or because of skin colour.

He totally fails to recognise that he himself was born male, white, middle class and privileged. He fails totally to recognise his own huge unearned privileges in life.

I haven't read his book, but I recently watched a few videos of him on YouTube to see what all the brouhaha was about. From the bits I saw he was much more nuanced and thoughtful in his arguments then he seems to be given credit for, but as has already been said he seems to have a massive blindspot when it come to the existence of structural inequalities.

I got the impression that he has quite reasonable arguments against ideas based on 'equality of outcome', but for some reason uses this as the basis to go to the opposite extreme where he refuses to recognise the existence of any unjust inequalities.

I got the impression that he has quite reasonable arguments against ideas based on 'equality of outcome

But this is just a massive strawman. No body argues for "equality of outcome' Have you ever met anyone in your life who argues for equality of outcome? Equality of opportunity yes but that's not the same thing.

He's said so many disgusting misogynistic things I'm so over people on this thread "I agree with him on somethings, he makes good points" Yes I'm sure Richard Spencer and David Duke make good points that doesn't mean you can excuse the terrible things they do / say. He wants women to have no choice but to marry these creepy incels, wants them to not earn an income themselves. He literally thinks womens purpose is there for mens benefit.

A man that is a known homophobic misogynist that has no problem saying women are inferior, by nature no less, supports sexually harassing women if they wear lipstick and a number of other idiotic, horrendous opinions his base eats up is being praised because a few things he says "make sense".

But this is just a massive strawman. No body argues for "equality of outcome' hmm Have you ever met anyone in your life who argues for equality of outcome? Equality of opportunity yes but that's not the same thing.

Erm...the gender pay gap? 50% representation of women in parliament/boardrooms/STEM careers? Equality of outcome amongst women and men at the population level seems to be the goal of at least some current feminist thought.

I've found Jordan Peterson's discussions with Joe Rogan to be really interesting.
This last one is worth a listen if you are interested in understanding his viewpoint:

He is very against identity politics, and the idea of groups ultising a victimistion narrative as their identity, as he believes it leads to tyranny and disastrous outcomes. Conflicts between groups claimig to be more oppressed (familiar?).

He is very focused on the utility and necessity of the individual to take resopnssibilty for making the changes they can to improve things for themselves and for those around them. This seems to be based both on his clinical psychology practice as well as his study of philosophy and history.

It's a concept resonating with young men particuarly, and a concept which seems to have been lost or ignored amongst the identity politics of the past 20 years.

He talks about polictcs needing to be a continual discussion and balance between left and right, and I feel his message of individual responsibility is a balance to the passivity which can occur from a group identity.

He's presenting some big ideas whihc haven't been aired for a while in western media, and which I'm really enjoying thinking through.

He obviously is working out some things as he goes, and admits as much, and I am not sure what I think about him and feminism at this point. I've been waiting for a really good debate between him and a feminist- the Helen Lewis one has got the nearest so far but that still left me with lots of unresolved questions.

Listening to him has raised lots of new questions in my mind; some things have become more clear and some things more muddied, and have led me to other sources to work out questions he's raised.
I love that.
He's provoked a level of thinking in me that I haven't experienced for quite some time.

Erm...the gender pay gap? 50% representation of women in parliament/boardrooms/STEM careers? Equality of outcome amongst women and men at the population level seems to be the goal of at least some current feminist thought

I'm a feminist and don't argue for those things. I'm pretty sure the majority of feminists on this board don't argue for this. You've met every single feminist have you? Or you've just seen one on YouTube.

I believe women should have the right to choose their life path, whether that's getting married, having a big career, having no kids, being a stay at home parent. This is something misogynist Peterson is deeply against. He wants to outlaw birth control, force women to rely on men financially so those creepy incels don't go mad and shoot up a school, and be barefoot and pregnant.

The fact that Jordan Peterson literally told a French Middle East correspondent that Men don't have an advantage globally blows my fucking mind. Women in the middle east don't have a disadvantage apparently.

www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=136&v=CzZDed4gEHc

This is great. Finally, someone to stand up to the decades of feminist literature which has been routinely critiqued and subsequently amended, subject to peer review, and based upon painstaking statistical and qualitative research by dismissing it as ‘bloody nonsense’ without so much as a single substantiated proposition for their claim.

The font of wisdom that is Jordan Peterson flows forth once again.

He is very against identity politics, and the idea of groups ultising a victimistion narrative as their identity

Straight white male tells oppressed minorities they’re doing it wrong.

Wow fizz that video. Peterson can come up with 16 different reasons for why men earn more than women but can only come up with one reason for women to wear make-up?

And he dodged the question of whether men have more power in the world by saying men fight in wars. Who is it who sends them to war?

I don’t get Peterson. Everything I see him in has him making stupid arguments and then the comments underneath are ‘omg Peterson OWNED that interviewer’. Are they watching a different video?

I'm a feminist and don't argue for those things. I'm pretty sure the majority of feminists on this board don't argue for this. You've met every single feminist have you? Or you've just seen one on YouTube.

I didn't say every single feminist, did I? If you want see what a strawman is, perhaps look at your own words.

What I said was that some feminists do want these things. Including many who are regulars on this board I'm sure (FYI I've lurked - and occasionally posted - on FWR for the best part of the decade, so I have a fair grasp on what kind of views are represented here). There have been campaigns around things like the gender pay gap. Have you not noticed them?

I believe women should have the right to choose their life path, whether that's getting married, having a big career, having no kids, being a stay at home parent.

I'm not an expert on Peterson. I've watched some of his videos and feel that I understand the basic gist of his thinking. I agree with some of it, disagree with other parts. There's nothing I have seen of his views that make me think he would disagree with what you have written above. He is absolutely all about people taking charge of their lives and finding their own path, as far as I can tell. I suspect he is almost certainly on your side with regards to equality of opportunity.

The more I think about your insistence that equality of opportunity is a strawman though, the more unconvinced I am. I am left of centre politically, and while I don't want absolute equality of outcome, I want greater equality of outcome than we currently have, as I'm sure do many other left wing people. Equality of opportunity alone doesn't do it, because equality of opportunity could mean that one person is a billionaire and one person lives on the street and as long as they both had an equal opportunity to end up in each situation everything is okay. I'm not okay with individuals amassing disproportionate amounts of wealth and I am certainly not okay with anyone to be forced to live on the street. So I do want something closer to equal of opportunity.

So if equality of opportunity is a strawman then I am that strawman, as I suspect are large sections of the political left for the past couple of hundred years.

I will never forget JP insisting that women aren‘t made for science but good at other stuff (caring) and asking:,wouldn‘t you rather do something you are good at?‘ Considering I have seen men make career in STEM who don‘t understand the mere basics, why women have to be 10 times as good to get ahead - because men are better at networking - that was quite an experience.
So, the blind spots of JP can fill a solar system. I‘m still with him on free speech.
I wish he would debate with more skilled opponents, though. (He beat that one female sky interviewer I saw, because she was all outrage and little arguments imo. He may be a skilled debater, but it just needs someone to call him out on his frequent cop-outs.)

I‘m still with him on free speech

He doesn't care about free speech. He's only interested in protecting racists from being able to say the N Word.

He doesn't actually care about free speech. He tried to sue a female professor for giving his book a bad review, for saying parts of his book were misogynistic (which they are!!) what about HER free speech?!?? She can criticise him if she likes! He only cares about free speech when it's defending someone saying sexist or racial slurs.

www.thecut.com/2018/09/jordan-peterson-threatened-to-sue-feminist-critic-kate-manne.html

Well, fizz, the question is was it defamation, a limit to which can and does coexist with free speech. It may well not have been, and he is just a hypocrite when it comes to himself. Does not change the fact that his advocacy for free speech is well reasoned.

I don't see the problem with ensuring there's an 'equality of outcome' in some situations. It strikes me that it's a fairly benign concept. For instance, if 50 me and 50 women get surgery for the same medical condition we would hope there to be an equality in outcome. It would be alarming if the men did very poorly and suffered from complications whereas the women did fine. In such a case, we'd want to rectify this.

The arguments against 'equality of outcomes' also overlook the fact that right now, in some domains, outcomes are very unequal. For example, the UK has one of the lowest proportion of female judges in Europe at just 30%. Those against equality of outcomes have to argue why it is justifiable for men to dominate - why is that the norm?

The demonisation of equality of outcome proposals hides the fact that at the moment we have a huge inequality of outcome - white, middle-class, straight men are overwhelmingly likely to dominate prestigious positions. What are the arguments in favour of such inequality? Or is the theory really that these men are just better than everyone else?

Well, fizz, the question is was it defamation, a limit to which can and does coexist with free speech. It may well not have been, and he is just a hypocrite when it comes to himself. Does not change the fact that his advocacy for free speech is well reasoned

But he doesn't care about free speech? He only wants to defend the free speech he likes. Saying someone is a misogynist is not deformation. I think he's a misogynist, should I be sued?!

Threatening to sue someone over their opinion on you is the opposite of free speech advocacy. Calling someone a child killer is deformation, calling someone who has said many many controversial things about women a misogynist is NOT deformation.

Trump has been called a misogynist by many journalists, could he sue them all? No, of course not.

The arguments against 'equality of outcomes' also overlook the fact that right now, in some domains, outcomes are very unequal. For example, the UK has one of the lowest proportion of female judges in Europe at just 30%. Those against equality of outcomes have to argue why it is justifiable for men to dominate - why is that the norm?
At a guess, I'd say because judges come from experienced lawyer stock, and from firms that require huge hours to be put in. So the inequality issue is to do with presenteeism, lack of flexible childcare, unhelpful partners/husbands, and possibly male networking circles (masons, golf, clubs). Equality of outcome being forced would mean a 50% quota of female judges (for example). But for all the reasons I suggested, those female judges would be less experienced than then men who were enabled by their wives to keep grinding out the long hours.
I don't want less experienced judges.
I don't want enforced quotas.
I do want female lawyers to be able to compete equally with their male counterparts without being excluded from networking circles or outworked due to being facilitated at home. Hence my rooting for equality of opportunity instead of (forced) equality of outcome. The latter also devalues all female judges and undermines those who got their positions pre-quota.

fizz I don‘t know what is hard about the concept of supporting a well reasoned argument. Karl Marx could have built an industrial empire based on slaves and his economic theories would still be valid.

The next thing I am going to tell you will blow your mind: I support Trump leaving Syria and Afghanistan (if he does it). Bummer, eh?

Something right doesn’t become wrong because an asshole says or does it. This hyper-emotionalized tribalism of this day and age is really something to behold.

Something right doesn’t become wrong because an asshole says or does it. This hyper-emotionalized tribalism of this day and age is really something to behold.
This is spot on. It's why it's almost impossible to have a political argument with someone these days. Each side believes itself morally right, and the opposition venal and evil.
It's why when an "approved" person says something off-message, people absolutely lose their shit. And when the opposition do something positive, the response is to pretend it was something negative.

He wants to outlaw birth control, force women to rely on men financially so those creepy incels don't go mad and shoot up a school, and be barefoot and pregnant.

Talk about a strawman. He argues no such thing, and I can’t believe you are being so hyperbolic. While I don’t agree with a good deal of what he says, nothing you’ve linked to demonstrates he believes any of the vile things you say he does.

I think the, 'equality of outcomes' concept is ridiculous. Research shows again and again that lots of women don't want to work the insane hours necessary to achieve some positions. My sister is a lawyer and could be a judge insofar as she is intelligent and diligent enough but she has weighed it up and is not willing to work towards this. She has chosen to spend her time with her family. JP points out, and I agree with him, that this is the mentally healthy decision. It is ridiculous to hope that even more women join men in becoming workaholics

And yet research shows that the barrier to achieving 50:50 representation in the House of Commons (surely a reasonable aim seeing as they are meant to represent the country, yet don’t represent us at the most basic level) is not supply - there are plenty of women who want to be MPs - but systematic discrimination which means that women are not selected as election candidates in winnable seats.

Where a party thinks a seat is winnable, they overwhelmingly select an older white male to stand for election.

All-women shortlists, forcing a woman to be selected in winnable seats led to a lot more female MPs.